Mission Mars and education; and papal tolerance, too

photo NASA's Orion spacecraft, preparing for it's first flight, departs the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building on its way to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center Thursday in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Orion is scheduled for a test flight in early December.

In a region where we continually have to talk up STEM courses and prod school officials to put digital tablets in underfunded schools, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia have some 71 suppliers working to help put our next space exploration into the air -- and space -- to Mars.

That's amazing and gratifying and -- even challenging.

Officials at Arnold Engineering and Development Complex and Micro Craft in Tullahoma, Tenn., along with companies in Decatur, Tenn., and Scottsboro, Ala., and Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., are preparing and supporting the Orion spacecraft mission for its Dec. 4 test launch, a four-and-a-half-hour mission to make two orbits around Earth.

Orion is the replacement for the space shuttles that began flying in 1981. Eventually, it is intended to "take humans farther than we've ever gone before," NASA spokeswoman Rachel Kraft told Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Ben Benton in Sunday's paper.

Here's the earthbound challenge: Find a way to translate some of that remarkable engineering ability and knowledge to help locally on the ground in these three states with educational issues.

Find a way to make this kind of educational connection more important in our daily debates and votes and headlines than the worn out ideological arguments over whose party thought up and is pushing Common Core or whatever the standards and testing jingle is next week and next year.

If we can get a space capsule in the air and into orbit, we should be able to formulate excellent curriculum and teach our children.

No more excuses. Especially not partisan excuses.

Let's follow the Pope's lead

It seems Pope Francis is going to make good on his talk of more religious tolerance for gays and people with failed marriages.

The pope called an important meeting, called a synod, of bishops to discuss issues related to the family in contemporary society. A report Monday on the main considerations under debate signals a potential easing of the church's rigid attitudes on homosexuality and the sanctity of marriage, according to the New York Times.

For instance, the report -- to be finalized next week -- called on pastors to recognize the "positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation," and to "be more welcoming to gays, who have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community."

It also called on pastors "to treat divorced Catholics who have remarried civilly with respect," avoiding any language or behavior that might make them feel discriminated against.

It's all good. Now if we could just get some similar meetings and attitudes among Southern Baptists, Church of Christ, and every other church and religious group.

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